


loose lips, sink ships

by markiafc



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Boats and Ships, Character Death, Character Study, Death, Declarations Of Love, Depression, Dooku: Jedi Lost (Star Wars), Fish, Hallucinations, Heartbreak, Introspection, M/M, Metaphors, Rarepair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27607244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markiafc/pseuds/markiafc
Summary: Sifo-Dyas understood. He saw the future. That is why he helped me.
Relationships: Dooku/Sifo-Dyas (Star Wars)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12





	loose lips, sink ships

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mynameisnemo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisnemo/gifts).



> for nemo, who gave me the prompt sifo/dooku 'showdown', intended for a 3 sentence challenge and then it became 3k

1.

> **Q: How many allegories can we write for ourselves?**
> 
> Sifo-Dyas: All, I think. Save for what is true.

2.

Seasick; Sifo-Dyas sunk his thumb into the center of the fruit where the skin enclosing the sphere of flesh folded and creased to meet in a seamless circle round the stem. The stretch of soothing orange were rinds rich and glossy to his eye, taut and dimpled to his touch, the scent clement and garden-fresh to his nose. His nail — neat, in a fashion far inferior to the time Dooku had taken his hands to trim and file his every trembling finger — descended through the thick skins like an anchor seeking the seabed. 

There, a deep disc-shaped scar impressed into the tangerine. There, a crescent wound awaiting its full moon becoming. There, the son of men fishing and men fighting stood with the fruit in his hold. Then he was digging his thumb in like a hook, wrenching skin away from the body and allowing wet fluid to burst free. Sifo-Dyas tore a strip down the side of the tangerine with a shredding sound, crisp, revealing the slices sitting in a circle called cradle, naked; children sleeping in marigold and amber. They would be tender and toothsome, but Sifo-Dyas was sick to his stomach and seawaves swept through his veins. He wasn’t here for them.

_You seek a ship,_ they said. _But its course is set and it doesn’t care to stop for the likes of you._

_I know,_ Sifo-Dyas said back, because he did and had stayed anyway. He looked to his handiwork where the piece of ripped rind hung loose in his hand, and watched it sway from its connection to the base of the tangerine. And he knew, as he knew it all to be the doings of daydreams, deceit draped over the descried, the dark deluding deeds double, that this was to be the secret he sought.

Sifo-Dyas snapped the strip free with a sharp yank, and raised the tangerine peel to his nose. And it was citrus of the aromatic sort that perfumed into his lungs, acidic and tart, light drops of distilled sun-fire amongst a sweetness that made his mouth water; the mandarine and the marks of those memories making its way home.

This time curtains parted before him to showcase the theatre: _Bait and hook, did he cherish you? Sailor and fish, I think he did._

He sensed the waves lapping at the sides of the ship, surges scrabbling and seafoam hissing, and Sifo-Dyas sucked the tangerine scent in as a steering wheel through his story: _in myth, in maritime numens, moving amongst colonies of coral, reefs of colour and coloured further by fishes and crabs, star and anemone, algae and seagrass swaying; pink, blue, greens; salt on wind and salt on skin. Minashee made the man with mettle in his marrow and magic in his mind. He was an angler by trade and sailed a ship by superstition. His success counted on the habits of his heritage, bait to snare and hook to kill; before the line was cast, it was tradition to title it by one he treasured. And if they treasured him back, his fish will bite like a prize._

_The man who_ — wore robes ochre and chocolate over coppery skin, his broad shoulders and dark brown locks tilting to a side as he leaned overboard, he held an orange in his hand and in a distant thought, named it ‘Dooku’ — _a lure, a lure, the line would catch, he was sure. He had been throwing nets and hurling lines for as long as he could remember, he had never failed before. It had always, always re-appeared with a message dangling off the barbs saying:_ “Dear god, give me that, you are absolutely terrible with tangerines. This is deplorable work, look at it. If you ever wish to eat one, I say, come to me instead.”

And so he did. But the water was shockingly cold. Every muscle in his body seized and so did his grip on the barely peeled tangerine. Every breath left his chest in a stabbing squeeze, and the single strip of skin floated on the seawater surface, away. Everything was a chill, a shock, a question of where were the fish? There was crying somewhere far off, muffled and frightened, and Sifo-Dyas hoped they would stop, the sound might scare away the… Ah, but of course, when had tears ever shooed the Count away? Maybe if _he_ cried, the Count would come back for a comforting embrace. Because he was always cherished, he knew that. He knew, he knew. He drank brine and squished the tangerine of its tang, and he knew.

_He followed his bait to the bottom of the ocean in a slow, slow sink, breathing blue through his nose and lungs that felt like fire, the volumes of water lifting his long hair to waft around his head like a strange halo. Bait and hook, take a good look. Sailor and fish, this time, the lover would reminisce. O, how the deluge deserted the drowned. There would be a shipwreck sunk, waiting where he was bound, and the fisherman of fiction would turn failure into fable; warning what’s lost would never be found._

3.

> **Q: There has always been a place for you here, my friend. By the side of my person. It is where you belong, Sifo.**
> 
> **I urge you to think now of the decades we spent standing closer than blood and all the years we spent divided by instability and uncertainty. Ask yourself what it is that you want. Do you wish to perpetuate the condition of the latter, or the former? You may have convinced yourself it was in our best interests to remove me from your life but, and I will say this now in all manner of confidence, you were wrong. Oh, you were very wrong. There has never been a moment more painful than when you decided you and I could make no further memories together.**
> 
> **You would have time here on Serenno with me. In our final few decades, we could write a rightful ending to our joint youth. We had a lifetime as Jedi to learn the joys of being inseparable, followed by the agonies of being as separate as is possible. What we have left is the lifespan of a young and short-lived adult. Or at best, one middle-aged. So hear me now when I ask you to come with me. Come. And we can live another bout of youth as one, playing the roles of ardent and old men for a change. Teach me again, my dear. To take heart in my feeling that is besotted with you. And I will teach you again and again to comprehend the common man’s contentment. I will teach you as many times as is necessary; this life-long love is not a passing cloud but the sky that I promised you.**
> 
> **Now, I am not a man of infinite patience as you are most definitely aware so I will only ask once. You have been warned.**
> 
> **Sifo. Si. I came back for you. Do not turn me away. Do not refuse me. Do not, and I repeat: do not let me go.**
> 
> **Sifo-Dyas. Come to me.**
> 
> Sifo-Dyas: I… [Voice Cracking] I can't remember the way. I'm sorry. I’m sorry. You're breaking my heart and I'm so sorry.

4.

The bowl was hot with bone broth in his hands, and the swirling steam was slender and seated with soft scents. Stirring, Sifo-Dyas smelled sparse seasoning in the air, and a whiff of meat; the gelatinous globs of bantha broth melting in boiled water to create a light brown soup. There was a film of oil floating on the tops like buoyant bubbles, a conglomeration of semi-congealed circles containing some flavour. They slid around the movements of his spoon, and the contents of the soup followed suit; strips of shredded tip-yip, chunks of corn, chopped cauliflower heads, cubes of carrots, and slices of tubers rich in starch, all in an assortment of orange, yellow, white. There was a squeeze of lemon mixed in somewhere, colourless, but deemed necessary for voyage’s sake.

Sifo-Dyas cupped his bowl like a candle, letting the meal warm his hands through the hewn wood. And he felt some relief at the good day his wits seemed to be having. He was acutely aware of the freighter-full of refugees following suit, sitting and sipping. He could sniff at the scent of broth and sweat, and think it was thicker than before. He could even pluck his purpose out from the forefront of his mind at a moment’s notice, he was not lost. He was not lost. His name was Sifo-Dyas. He was dressed in faded shades of sand and sepia. He was sitting with the citizens of Solay as cargo to be smuggled. To safety. He was not lost.

_“Feeling peckish, Sifo?”_ The voice as deep as genteel thunder said. And the effect was electrifying, the shock shoving Sifo-Dyas’ sip to skew, familiarity forcing it to spill across his tongue, scalding and stinging his taste buds into numbness. Suddenly, his palms felt like they were searing as well. The heat that seeped through the bowl sank into his hands and flared within, liquefied fever filling the inside of his arms and sliding upwards along the bone. He felt sweat slipping across his skin, down his brow and down his back, and hoped it wasn’t cold sweat. A mass of mammals would emanate warmth. A crowd crammed together would generate heat. Sifo-Dyas thought this. He could still think this.

He breathed in broth and vegetables, a hint of meat, a hint of oil; a bit of filth, a bit of staleness. The soup, the ship and the citizens. His name was Sifo-Dyas and he was still burning. Sifo-Dyas bit the inside of his mouth and turned his head, slowly, towards where he was sure a narrow window was. And there, trapped in the thick transparisteel, was his own reflection and that of other humanoid forms — his tired eyes and rumpled bun layered on the scenery of space like a sticker, glassy and see-through; _angels existing in echoes as afterimages to be admired, fleet eaters leading ships to slaughter; space is dead black with stars as sleets in suspense, and ships are arrays of grey with passengers pitter-pattering between planets. The angel entranced and the man who runs._

He found the piece to the puzzle. And this time the shape of Sifo-Dyas splintered into shards before his eyes so he could see the stage: _Diathim and dearest, is it I you detest? Starship and landings, only since the stranding._

He sensed something catching up to their illegal vessel, broiling hostility and piercing danger, an engine eating the fuels of war and a hyperdrive hungering for burnt bones. Sifo-Dyas stood amongst the displaced civilians and sprinted to the cockpit, soup sloshing, the shattered image of himself still storytelling: _in Diathim diegeses, in the detailed deeds of deities, they were beauty in the blank black expanse, enthralled by the sight of spacecrafts and captains. Unpolished gemstones in dull casings came too close to home. Unfathomable power in divine wear could not help but approach. The angel chases and charms and so the vessel falls violent and rough; the result of natures at odds because what is to happen when a noble with a fleet meets a fisherman without a ship?_

Sifo-Dyas burst into the cockpit, shouting and yanking the pilot out of his seat by the back of their collar. He only managed to skim a touch over the controls before the attack blasted into their side, charring and carbonizing the freighter, consuming with a heat beyond compare. He shouts louder and begs himself to stay, he cannot be lost, not now. There was crying somewhere far off, muffled and frightened, and Sifo-Dyas swore he would win them the chance to cry again. Even if _he_ cried, no one would come to save their lives or salvage his happiness.

He pitched them down to a crash-landing and — _the ship does not survive, but the Diathim does. It is, as they say, a love that betrays and a love that breaks_ — everything plunged towards the planet. Sifo-Dyas saw the echo of himself in the transparisteel of the cockpit, seated and sweating, splitting and splitting and splitting to splatter across the sight of a globe growing closer.

His reflection was an eye here, another eye there, and empty disembodied hands, his lightsaber nowhere to be seen, his mouth bloody and shredded and still spinning the story that was: “Shh, don’t tell on me but I stole it from the Temple kitchens. Doesn’t it taste great? I know, I know, the healers gave you a list of things you were banned from consuming but broth is good for you! I think? I’m pretty sure, yeah. And if it makes you feel better then it’s definitely good for you. If they catch you, you can just say it was all me. I’ll take the fall for you, Dooku, as always.”

5.

> **Q: Loved him, you did. Miss him, do you?**
> 
> Sifo-Dyas: [Wry Laugh] What does it mean to love? And what does it mean to miss? These days, I feel as though I oscillate between a multitude of awful and darkening emotions when I think of Dooku. And I think of him often. I don’t know. I wish I could be kinder to him, even if it’s just in my mind. I wish I could somehow be better about this, be the forgiving and understanding friend who loves and misses as he lives on. 
> 
> Instead I think of the better part of my life I shared with him, and this is how it ends. This is how I end. And sometimes I’m angry, sometimes I grieve, sometimes I long for a world where I play the fool and throw caution to the wind as I leave with him. Sometimes… Sometimes I try to find a future where I receive retribution for refusing him, and, well, those futures are there to be found to say the least. But most days, I feel nothing and I think of no one. Those times always end though and I return to the real world where everything is… real. Waiting. In need of my efforts and attentions.
> 
> In the real world, the person I found impossible to imagine a life without has left. Even when I had always thought, shamefully, secretly, that it would’ve been me who wouldn’t last here and that Dooku was the one who thrived and belonged. Now I conceive a life without him, and it is one where I— I am a fracture of a man, and I always feared I was not whole but now I see that it is true. I am some sort of broken, some sort of lacking. Even worse, it is a state I had to grow into, as opposed to being born to it. I _became_ this.
> 
> I’m sorry, Master. This isn’t about Dooku. I used to believe I was burdensome and he deserved far better than the likes of me, and I was too ashamed to admit any of my shortcomings to him. So I ran, but hypocrisy made me expect a chase. I wanted him to wait in the Temple shuttle hanger when he caught wind of my arrival, even as I planned in the same breath to avoid him at all costs. I wanted him to seek the state of my being from Master Kostana even as I told her to tell him nothing that would make him worry. I wanted him to worry. I wanted him to think of me and pursue me in the same breath that I wanted him to forget me entirely. I wanted him to love me even as I barred the way for him to do so. It wasn't fair. It was wrong. But I did it anyway.
> 
> And now, I realise I haven’t changed much at all. Dooku has flown free of the chains I locked him in, and yet, I still yearn for the unreasonable. I wish for him to return to me and say he still thinks me special, but every time he does, I refuse him and turn away and I come back here, only to weep and wonder why I did not say yes. That is, if the day is well and I have the mind to. It is deplorable cowardice, I think, that I ensnare myself in endless circles like this instead of fixing things. I only wish to fix and assist and help, if the act would eat at me in the process. I only wish to do good to feed my sense of— of guilt. My desire for retribution, for justice. When did my crimes begin to make feel this way? The scariest thing is I might have always felt this way, Master. I may have been collecting convictions since the start. 
> 
> Did you know I comb my hair the way Dooku taught me to when we were younglings? I still clean my lightsaber with a mix I buy from a shop we found together as Padawans. I make note of curious treasures wherever I go, out of habit because I used to always bring something back for him. As he did for me, whenever he could. He is still a part of my life and my being, with the only exception being his absence. And I sometimes, cruelly, cruelly think it might be easier if he was dead. Then I wouldn’t have to break my skull over the fact that he would never forgive me, or that when he speaks of the Jedi and the Republic with disdain, he is speaking to me and about me. Or forever cling to the things I can still do to mend this, to redeem myself. Except there is nothing to redeem, I have done little wrong. The knowledge helps with nothing, though. I don’t know. 
> 
> I don't... [Deep Breath] I don't know.
> 
> I don’t know why you want to listen to all this when you wouldn’t listen to the things I say that actually matter. I could be overreacting about this too, who knows? You wouldn’t understand.
> 
> I’m sorry, that’s not fair. I don’t mean that Master.
> 
> I just don’t know. I don’t know what you want me to say. My heart’s just about jumping out of my chest in fear of what will come of this. All of it. Please don’t hate me too. I don’t know if I can handle it if you… If you think less of me. Or if you think me broken somehow. I know I said I think that, but like a duplicitous bastard, I don’t want anyone else to think that of me. I wish I wasn't a liar, I don't think I am but I can't be sure these days. I feel more and more like one as the days go by, I think I believe my own words but deception and undeserving may be seeded so deeply in me no one can detect it. I'm, I'm a nightmare in a nightmare and Dooku was right to leave us, I was right to refuse him. I shouldn't— I shouldn't be here, I'm not making sense, I don't— I don't know what to _do—_
> 
> [Weeping]
> 
> I wish I could be true. I wish I could be good. I wish I could be better. Fuck. I’m sorry, Master. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. 
> 
> I’m sorry.

6.

_Seafarer and Sifo-Dyas; death is a trip, grave is the ship. Silver is the fish and gold is the kissed. Sifo-Dyas sews his favourite threads together to make a bed of lies to lay in, half-truths and tales, for what could be more gentle and grand than deception? He sews himself a pocket for pointless tears and pretends it isn’t already full. He sews himself another pocket for plots and lullabies sung at midnight to sweet children, and pretends it isn’t full either. Because he did love enough for a lifetime, Sifo-Dyas thinks. He hopes it is. He’s not sure how much harder he could have loved. How much more, if only he could count, count, count._

_His lips are lifeless and his lungs are leaking when he whispers, “Will you fly me to the ends of the world?”_

_And it summons sea life from sand: curves and sickles of silver and grey swimming to the surface, surrounding him in a fit of flapping and fluttering, wet slaps and watery gasps. Fish; shining scales and sparkling fins, squirming like a pelagic eye opening beneath his body, an ocean birthing to death. There were eighty eyes staring back at him dead, wide and wet, unblinking in ninety, a hundred, a hundred and one. A thousand. Two hundred thousand. They writhed under his weight and wriggled around his corpse, a twisting tail slapping at the back of his hand, at the back of his neck, at the back of his calf. Sifo-Dyas was cradled in a ship made of fish. And saltwater gold dripped from the ceiling to his cheek. How many droplets down his face, painting his lips, if only he count, count, count._

_“We will take you,” The thousands of flailing fish announce around him. “To the moon.”_

_“To die?”_

_“To die.” They sang and swam, and swallowed him whole._

_He could be a fish, Sifo-Dyas thinks as salt-touch turns him silver and tears paint streaks of gold on his skin. He was so cold. Sea Sifo-Dyas, the starferry, the ship, the captain, the passenger; roles were a frame of mind, shows were made for the blind. And now the nightmare ends. What a novelty it was, to build a ship that professes without words. It dies filled to the brim with two hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, fish and fables._

_"Tell him how many it held, Count." The fish wheeze. "He would know if only he could count, count, count."_

_"Count," Sifo-Dyas says softly. "I'm too tired."_

_Two hundred thousand and counting, he thinks. One million and counting. Two million and counting. There was a gold kiss pressing into the silver of his shoulder, branding him bounty; three million, four million, a sweet stroke over his scales, five million and counting, counting, counting. Two hundred thousand._

_One fish and a Count..._

**Author's Note:**

> so this turned out to be A Lot, and also kinda cathartic to write + also weirdly personal....? 
> 
> if you made it this far or even bothered to read this, you have my undying gratitude and i hope your day goes great. /blows kiss/ sifo dyas turned out to mean a lot to me despite him being basically a nobody in canon, this was somewhat hard to write and also ended up meaning a lot to me. i hope it works /fingers crossed


End file.
